


Escape

by KeeperofSeeds



Series: Obi Wan & Shmi and the Worst Vision ever [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Denial, Escape, Force Visions, Freedom, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), POV Female Character, Panic Attacks, Slavery, Tatooine, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:19:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperofSeeds/pseuds/KeeperofSeeds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shmi's escape from Tatooine after the Visions. The first steps of her journey towards freedom and a new life. One where she must deal with the consequences of remembering lives already lived and horrors that might still come to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suzukiblu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad to see other people being so excited about this Tumblr spawned AU! Looks like I'm officially adopting this plot bunny. Thank you so much for all your comments and flailing. Feel free to share ideas or headcanons or characters you'd like to see interact because there are just so many fun directions this AU could go.
> 
> I also stuck this as first in the series, just to try and keep them in a more chronological order vs the order that I am writing scenes in. Hopefully it will make it easier to follow along.

 

It takes Shmi three days to get to the nearest space port. She spends the first day walking, even through the mid day heat, desperate to get as far away as possible. She doesn't dare contact anyone or ask for shelter. She does not want to put her friends in danger. A slave caught harboring a runaway would risk a whipping at the very least, or possibly have parts cut off. The later a more common punishment, as a slave could still do physical labor missing an ear or a nose or even a finger or two. Less so with lashes up and down their back. Many times though, the wounds became infected in the desert heat, with no water to spare to keep them clean, and the person dies. She will not risk that.

She can feel the tracker buried in her shoulder still. Even with it disabled, Gardulla could still send out people to hunt her down. Even _if_ they assume her dead, wandered or attempted escape out of her range, they'd want her body for confirmation. She wouldn't be the first slave to try and run after all.

She'd grabbed a cloak one of the Weequay body guards had left lying around before leaving and wrapped it around herself. It's stained, but serviceable. She doesn't remove it, even when the sweat plasters her hair to her forehead.

She survives those first days on food she'd taken from Gardulla's garden. On vegetables and roots and dried strips of meat she'd bartered for at a market just a few days earlier.

* * *

The closer she gets to port the stronger her son's old desires flare up in her.      

She can feel Anakin's memories well up, his want, his _need,_ to fly, to get away from this planet. To see all the stars and every system imaginable! She tamps the desire down. She will not steal a ship. Testing her son's skills, the half remembered reflexes that now course through her own bones, will have to wait. She remembers his infamous crashes all too well. Remembers the Other, the one in her visions. ~~Her Master~~ Anakin's Jedi Master, teasing him with an exasperated look. Remembers the unexpected Padawan that had come later, that _will come_ , rolling her eyes at the pair as they bickered and teased.

She feels the Spark that is Anakin giggling inside her. He likes those memories.

But no. It will simply be easier to sneak aboard a ship this time, to trust her escape to another pilot. Easier not to deal with the trouble and security forces a stolen ship might bring.

She lurks in the hanger bay, listening to technicians calling out to one another, to the clang of metal and the hiss of a soldering tool. It calms both her and Anakin.  
  
She waits, standing in the shadows, ignored by the beings around her, one small woman, silent and still in the organized chaos of work and repairs, and closes her eyes. She tentatively reaches out with her senses, feels the current of the Force as it flows through the hanger bay. She lets it guide her.     

She ends up in front of a medium sized freighter, beige and fairly well cared for it seems on first glace. Droids are the only things she senses moving in and out of the ship. Yes. This will do. There are enough boxes of goods in the hold to conceal her should anyone come looking, and yet enough space that she will not be cramped.   She slips in and kneels behind a box of machine parts, letting the tension in her shoulders relax.

The first step in this journey is done.

There will be many more steps to take before she finds this journey's end though. This she knows.  

* * *

She settles into a doze at some point, exhaust from travel and fear of being found catching up to her, but wakes with a start as the ship hums to life. She folds her hands around her abdomen, wrapping the tattered cloak closer around herself, ignoring the smell of smoke on it, and tries not to flinch as she feels the thrum of the engine buzz to life beneath her.

_I trust you my son_  she thinks and closes her eyes as the ship takes off. She knows the tracker is off, she does. Her heart simply does not believe that it can be this easy.

The ship rises and she feels the gentle climb it makes, bringing her closer to the upper atmosphere. Closer to either madness or freedom. She clenches her eyes shut as she ship speeds up, bracing herself.

Nothing happens. Her tracker doesn't explode. The crew don't burst into the hold, demanding her return to Gardulla and claiming of their reward.

She's free.

Shmi opens her eyes and can't stop the laughter that bubbles up from within. Free. She never imagined- didn't dare dream-

she pauses, the laughter drying up. This means what she saw was Real. It wasn't a fluke or luck that let her deactivate her tracker. It was the Force. The Universe realigning itself perhaps.

That means that all she saw (all _that was? That will be?_ ) might still happen. The War, the Empire, her Ani's marriage, her grandchildren…her, no, the Other, _his_ Master dying in his arms, his love that might have been stabbed and dying in his arms too. The fighting, the meditations with the Grand Master, the Council seat, so many events rush past, seared into her mind. Entire lives, all three of theirs, smearing together.  
  
All the good times and the bad...will it still come to be? Is it destined to happen? Or has she already changed things? What if her escape, her freedom, changes things beyond recognition? What will they do?

She feels her chest tighten, and her breath grow short as the magnitude of her actions finally hit her.  
  
There isn't enough air. She tries to suck it in faster but feels the fear crawl up her throat and tighten its hands like she remembers seeing- _doing_ to countless other beings and how horrible it is and she's shaking now, hands clammy and trembling. She's losing herself in remembrance of the Dark Times, the choked gasping sensation before the respirator the Master gave. The smell of burning, itching, peeling flesh and she sits in a life support pod trying to force aching lungs to work against the odds and- and-

Another memory is shoved forward.

She remembers the man who came (would have come?) to Tatooine. His long graying hair and noble features. Remembers words she's never heard him speak, words spoken to the Other in the Vision: " _be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment, young Padawan._ _Trust your instincts_."

She concentrates on that voice and shoves her hands under her arms to fight both the trembling and the chill.

Live in the moment she repeats to herself mentally, breath growing longer on each repetition until she can draw the air in deeply again.   

Overwhelmed, she curls up tighter between the boxes and tries to concentrate of her immediate surroundings. She smell of recycled air sucked into still greedy lungs, the rough texture of the crates against the line of her back and side. She lets one hand follow along the box until she feels the beginning of nails used to keep it shut. She picks at one, wanting something to fiddle with in her hands. An old habit of Anakin's. One she'd have to be careful not to pick up permanently.

She wiggles the nail enough to release it, and falls asleep soon after, soothed by the repetitive motion of the metal twisting around her hand. A hand that is reassuringly flesh and bone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of Gardulla the Hutts's garden and the Weequay Shmi's cloak is stolen from are my nods to sharkcar's awesome Shmi centric fic: [Not Dead, Just Sold On](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6763129)
> 
> I loved it so much I recently podficced it and I'm gonna rec it to anyone who is interested in more Shmi and Tatooine slave culture.


	2. Chapter 2

The ship touches down in just five days time. A shorter time than she'd assumed. It was surprisingly easy to avoid the small crew. A handful of humans with a group of loading droids. She sneaks into the galley during the night cycle for water and huddles in the hold, rationing it carefully, along with the last of her dried meat.

She sneaks out of the hatch, ignoring the confused beeps of the two droids waiting on the dock. She still has a long way to go. She can almost feel the call of the Temple in the back of her mind. Calling her to a home she has never seen, except in the memories of those now closest to her.

She works for passage after that. At the local cantina she is pointed to a Rodian pilot named Mantolii looking to hire help. Her Rodian is limited to a handful of phrases useful to a slave working in a shop, but between his fragmented Basic and then Huttesse, they manage to come to an understanding. It is  more difficult than she expected to keep her eyes locked on his. Such things, remembering to raise her chin, looking another being in the eye, speaking her mind…they will take time. Half a life lived plus a lifetime  of remembered  rules will not quickly be forgotten. But she has time now, and this trader had the patience to work through communications difficulties.

He has only a small load of cargo to return to the Core. Most of his trade is the other direction. Shmi understands all too well the desperation of those in the Outer Rim for things many in the Core consider basic necessities. Imported goods were the only way worlds with little resources, like Tatooine, managed to survive. Unfortunately for the Rodian, his ship had been damaged on his last run, and he now he feared breaking down on the route back and becoming easy prey to pirate gangs. His misfortune was Shmi's gain. This was exactly the type of transport she could use.   
  
Utilizing her own knowledge and memories of Anakin's time aboard ships, she digs through his engine core and the various panels he points out that were damaged. Not that he needs to with the entire port side of the ship scraped up. It's obvious which side took the brunt of the damage and she soon she shrugs out of her robe and waves him off to really dig in. Sometimes the things she remembers don't exist yet, the technology hasn't advanced that far, but she makes due, as she always has. She has his ship ready to fly by the next day. The rest are all smaller fixes she can do in hyperspace. Take her time with them and let herself be soothed by the steady work of separating and stripping wires and replacing small, overworked parts.   
  
It is both strange and familiar to work this way, with a collection of parts at hand to choose from as well as plenty of scrap partsShe is a fair hand at mechanical repairs. She had to be after so many years working under Watto, but she was never as good as Ani. Ani who seemed to intuitively understand machines, to find malfunctioning parts as if draw by a magnet. She wonders now how much the Force had to do with his understanding. Now that she can feel the currents of it, can remember bits and pieces of lectures from another life. She doesn't push these new senses too far yet. A ship half spliced together bringing her across galaxies to the Other in the Visions isn't the place to be experimenting. She can wait. Between her own knowledge and memories of Ani's, they get by just fine. 

* * *

She spends much of her free time in the cargo hold. Mantolii was so pleased with the improvements she's done that he waves his long fingered hands at her when she asks for some clear space to work. 

" _Whatever you wish_ ," he says in Huttesse.  
So in the early hours of the ship's night cycle, Shmi moves boxes away from the center of the hold, and stands alone in the dim room. She sinks deep into her body and tries to let muscle memories that were never hers take over.

Slow, steady movements. Feet moving forwards and back, arms following her core as she twist and stretches.

She can almost hear the breathing of Initiates around her. Lessons she has never experienced linger in her muscles and within her mind. It is both wonderful and terrifying how easily the moves come to her. A slave has no use for such things. Her physical condition was only important in that she was healthy and fit enough that she could carry out the tasks assigned for her. There was no time for slow stretching and strengthening of muscles between the mundane drudgery of daily chores.  
She finds that she enjoys these exercises however.

They become a daily part of her new routine.

By the end of the week she has begun doing the moves faster. Half speed, a voice from the past whispers in the back of her mind.

It feels like something is missing, though she cannot imagine what.

It hits her while she is upgrading the navigation controls, parts spread out along the floor: a lightsaber.  
That's what's missing. She stares down at the mess of parts for so long that the co-pilot comments. She barely hears the woman, her mind already spinning, mentally drawing out designs of what her saber will look like. She puts the panel back together in a haze, vowing to go over it again once more before landing, but too preoccupied to focus on it now.

* * *

Once the thought has taken root in her mind she cannot shake it. Like the dry cactus plants of Tatooine the idea sinks its thorns into her. She can imagine it perfectly. Her hands itch with the desire to shape it, to bring it to life. Part of her says to wait until she reaches the Temple. To follow the winding halls and find the room full to bursting with any part and any material she may ever need, but the rest of her wants it now. The security of having that weight on her hip, that assurance that she _is_ a Jedi and not just another mad woman. _Sky touched._ Heat addled. Any other insult slung at a slave woman who dared to act or even dream above her station. A touch of pride wells up, a desire to prove herself to any who doubt her. She _is_ a Jedi; a lightsaber will confirm it.

 

She takes up a position in the middle of the hold, legs folded and hands resting together, palms upturned on her thighs. She sinks into meditation, her thoughts focused on the lightsaber she can imagine, turning it over in her thoughts, tracing the strong lines of it. She remembers the feel, even if her hands do not.  
  
She can hear the call of the crystal within it through the Force, can feel the gentle weight of it in her hand. The Force flows around her, cradling her, singing out its rightness.

She lets it carry her.

* * *

 She opens her eyes to find a wary group of crew members peering suspiciously at her.

She feels the hard edges of her crystal in her hand and smiles. It doesn't seem to reassure the people gathered at the door of the hold.

One of the crew, a short human male, limps slowly through the door, after a worried glance over his shoulder at his companions. He asks how she is feeling. He does not look her in the eye.  
   
She is confused, but slowly, she draws it out of him. The reason for his question, for her crowd.  
  
A crew member came searching for her when she did not show up for the evening meal. The Rodian claimed he'd open the hold and found her floating in mid air, an unnatural glow infusing the area.  
It had lasted through the entire night cycle. They did not know what to do. Did not know if she was dangerous or in need of assistance. Their worry and unease are a sour note in the Force.

Shmi holds the crystal tighter in her fist and bows her head slightly, assuring them that all is well.

"I apologize for the disturbance."

She does not know what else to say. She did not expect this. Her memories reveal no explanation for this, no precedent.

The Force flows through her and around her, and she takes comfort. Even in its silence, there is that feeling of Rightness. She is on the right path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Googling lead me to believe that it takes about 3 weeks of hyperspace travel to get from Tatooine to Courescant so that's the timeline we're working with here.
> 
> & in case anyone is feeling confused about how Shmi just acquired her crystal she basically made it kind of come together with raw Force power while meditating on it. "Being simultaneously pregnant with Anakin and having been kicked into what is essentially Force-hyperdrive, she’s basically just so soaked in midichlorians that she has access to abilities that have fallen out of general Force-user knowledge simply by virtue of how close she IS to the Force right now"
> 
> For some more info/headcanon-y goodness on the above quote on how exactly crystal making and lightsaber building are working in this verse, check out [ the post suzukiblu made for me](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/post/146567832138/a-collection-of-obi-wan-and-shmi-and-the-worst)


	3. Chapter 3

 

The crew's unease around her does not dissipate. It lingers; in sideways glances and drawn out pauses in conversation, she sense their feelings. She does not need to use the Force to know this. They are curious now about her: the unassuming woman with strange powers travelling in their hold.

They do not work up the courage to question her however, so she does as she has always done and lets the whispers that follow her  slid off her shields.

It is a bit disconcerting to be on this side of such curiosity. She remembers another lifetime and feeling such things about the tall stranger Ani brought home to their dinner table.

The one exception is the pilot, Mantolii. He seems to have developed a fondness for her, despite her attempts to stay fairly isolated while on board. _A fine mechanic_ , he tells anyone who begins to question her continued presence on the ship, and he leaves it at that. He also pauses to pat her hand and gesture over at the ship's store of canned foods when he catches her in the mess. _Little ones need food to grow_ , he says, and Shmi is so surprised at this simple gesture she almost cries. She wipes away the threat of tears and silently blames the hormones, but she smiles at his kindness, and is grateful. 

* * *

That night she sits back in the space she'd cleared in the cargo hold, bits of scrap scattered in a semi circle around her. Metal and leather and wires, anything that caught her eye and that wasn't being immediate used had been taken for her task.

She doesn't have the tools to build the design she'd begun to construct in her mind, but even a heavily modified lightsaber was better than none.

_"This weapon is your life…"_

She hears the whispers of a past lesson surface and braces herself against a sudden influx of nerves. What if she can't build it here? Or even if she can, what if it isn't enough proof for the Temple to accept her story?

Her hand seeks the nail in her pocket from the first ship, needing something to fidget with, but instead of feeling the line of cool metal tucked away, her fingers instead find the warmth of her crystal. She pulls it out and stares down at it, almost clear in her tanned hand.

She won't know until she tries, she thinks and sits down amid the collection of parts to begin.

* * *

The end result is much more eclectic than she had expected. She'd trusted her instincts and reached out for parts that felt right as she'd built, using both her hands and the Force to manipulate them into place. It's not as smooth as she'd like, but she's used to making due, and she hopes that she'll have access to more tools at the Temple to fix the aesthetics of her hilt. It's heavier than she expected too. The heft of it sturdy in her callused palm.. Soon, she hopes, new calluses would be formed. Ones that would match the weight in her hand.

She stands and moves out from the leftover parts. Wrapping both hands around her lightsaber hilt, she takes a deep breath in, and flicks it on.

The blade that emerges isn't blue, or green, (or even red, like she'd feared in a small corner of her subconscious), it's almost…clear. Like the Kyber crystal itself. It could be considered white perhaps, if she looked directly at the center most part of where the blade started, but if she tilts her head and looks at it from the side it almost…disappears. Shmi gapes in wonder. She swings it slowly side to side, letting the steady hum wash over her. She comes back to center in a salute to a nonexistent partner, the blade starting in front of her face before she sweeps it down and away. Then she lets the blade retract and smiles so wide it makes her cheeks ache! She _did_ it! She's another step closer to her goal.

She hears a creak above her and realizes she must have worked through the night. The morning shift of the crew must be waking and gathering in the mess for breakfast. Before she can move to collect the left over scraps or even before she hangs the lightsaber away in the pouch under the layers of the clothes she feels a sharp punch in her middle.

Shmi gasps, a hand moving to press against her stomach. Another movement jumps up to meet her.

Anakin.

She's felt his presence in the Force for months already, but this is the first time she's felt him physically. 

 Just when she didn't think she could contain any more joy. It bubbles up around her and she doesn't bother trying to conceal it as she makes her way up to the mess to start her regular tasks.

Soon they'll dock at Coruscant, and she'll be on the final leg of this mission. She'll be that much closer to the place in her mind that still feels like a home away from home for her boys.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day?! Surprise!

 By the end of the week the ship reaches Coruscant space. Shmi spends the time waiting for permission to dock looking out through the view port over Mantolii's shoulder and marveling that so many being could be on one planet at the same time. All of them, hundreds of thousands upon thousands of people, all going about their lives. She could see the haze of electric lights from the layers of the city below already shining bright through the smoky haze of pollution drifting up. If she squinted, she thought she could just begin to make out the spires of the Temple in the distance.

Shmi spends the whole time the ship is waiting for their turn to dock with her eyes glued to the windows, taking in the planet and planning out her next step.

* * *

They finally make it to the docks and droids roll up to begin helping with the unloading, but Mantolli waves them away. Shmi waits until the other crew are paid and begin to make their way down the dock before approaching him.

He gives her a data chip with her payment, then reaches out and pats a long fingered hand on the beginning swell of her belly beneath the now slightly cleaner cloak she'd taken from the Weeqay. " _You take care Shmi,"_ he says in slow Huttesse. _"You and your little one. If you need work after, you find me. I put information there."_  He nods to the data chip.

She thanks him in Rodian, one phrase she is confident in, and the smile she gets in return is worth it. With one more phrase that she is pretty sure is wishing her well on her journey, Mantolli turns to finish locking down the ship, and Shmi turns to head towards a new life.  

* * *

The planet's sun is rising high in the sky by the time she makes it out of the maze that is the docks. There are more people than she's ever seen in her life! All packed into one place. Shouting and running and working on ships. She doesn't know where to look first! She almost trips over an passing droid or wire running across the floor more than once.

Coruscant's streets are only slightly better.

The smell of food from street vendors calls to her, but she doesn't want to waste one more second with her doubts. She finds a speeder bay in one of the more shadowy alleys and hotwires one. She almost gets rammed by a group of humans as she ascends too slowly into the traffic. The swerve around her yells lost in the buzz and hum of other vehicles. Shmi's heart is pounding and her hands are sweaty where they wrap tightly around the controls. Maybe she should have waited to take the speeder until nightfall. Hopefully the traffic wouldn't be quite so bad then?

She swears under her breath as another speeder flies by her, causing her hair to whip across her face.

 _Slow and steady Shmi_ she thinks and keeps flying, closer and closer to her goal.

* * *

She sets down her speeder on the edge of Temple grounds with a grateful sigh, and just lets her eyes wander over the miles of half familiar architecture, letting it sink in. She's here. She made it.

The long boulevard to the Temple waits before her, the giant statues of Jedi guardians lining the path in a way that is more imposing than she expected.  The Jedi often were more theatrical than they cared to admit, she thinks.

The sun shines out from the behind one of the nearest spires, golden beams of light reaching for her as she sits in the shade of the street.

For a moment her vision _shifts,_ and suddenly she sees the flames in her mind, the smoke pouring from cracked towers and the cries of Padawans as they fall under her, no _his_ blade…but she quickly shakes her head. _NO._ The flames fall away.  
That will not happen now. She is _here_. This is where she is meant to be. She will find her son's Master and together they will fix this. Even if she has to fight the entire Council to do so. They _will_ get them to see reason. To see beyond the coming cloud of Darkness. The cloud that has yet to start reaching out and injecting its inky fingers into the Order.

But that can wait. Wait until after she first reassures herself that she hasn't gone mad and dreamed all these events in her desperation to be Free. That it hasn't just been Luck or the will of the Gods that she's made it this far.

* * *

Shmi dismounts the speeder,  brushes the dusts of travel from her robe as best she can, raises her head high, reminds herself that she can (she is _Free,_ now and forever) and marches up the lane towards the steps of the Jedi Temple. She leaves the hot-wired speeder in the open, not expecting it will stay there long. The makeshift saber she's put together stays hidden under in the pouch under her robe for now.

She'd decided the northern public entrance would be her best bet. As she marches up the stairs Anakin shifts inside her and she lays hand over him. _Yes, my love. We're here. Together we’ll find him._

 _Even if I have to stand here and shout all night_ she thinks to herself.

There are of course way to sneak in and out of the Temple that Anakin was, or will be, very familiar with, but Shmi doubts her larger frame could fit. Besides, she has no wish to cause a panic. She will start here.

Finally she reaches one of the Padawans in charge of guarding this entrance. In a loud voice she declares, "I am here to see Master Kenobi."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [(Podfic of) Obi-Wan & Shmi and the Worst Vision Ever series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307203) by [bowl_of_petunias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowl_of_petunias/pseuds/bowl_of_petunias)




End file.
